It’s a strange month full of expectations. From the kick-off of the EPL season, the grand launching of the NCER (Northern Corridor Economic Region) across the four (4) northern states in Peninsular Malaysia, the grand final draw of the FIABCI Malaysian Property Contest, the heating up of the East Asia SME Business Forum 2007 on 6 September (www.globalsme.com.my/smebif2007) along with the Global SME 2007 at the MECC, our nation’s 50th independence celebration on 31 August and to the all important budget announcement on 7 September, it is almost too much to handle.
As you are reading this, may I welcome you to the last quarter of the 2007. This is the time for you to consolidate your performance this year in hope for a last ditch effort to achieve the various targets that you have set for yourself this year. It is important to take a moment to yourself and take a look around before resuming your journey.
Here is the CA’s reflection for 2007 so far:
- Q1 Theme : “Quality, Quality, Quality”
- Q2 Theme : “Once and for All”
- Q3 Theme : “Mission Starfish – making Real Difference”
May I now announce the theme for Q4 – “People, People, People”. This shall be a quarter that celebrates human as the best resources of CA, past, present and moving forward. At this note, may I welcome onboard, Velene and William. They would certainly add different value propositions to CA and you shall soon read about them on CA Web.
Good News (in a way):
We would like to celebrate our “Enforced Enlightenment” that we are in the business of building leaders and that human capital is the key to a service industry like ours. Therefore, I would like to now declare a WAR on Talents, the bloody Red Ocean that compete for the best of human capitals. The challenges are simply:
- Non-legal firm are paying more for LLB qualification while legal firm only really pay for qualified practitioners (which is a good one or two years after).
- The War on Talents is a global one. If you only benchmarking against your local competitors, you are way too wrong!
- Negative perception of working in a legal firm: long hours, lot of pressures, stressful, little benefits, slow career path as emphasis seems to be on seniority only etc.
- The competitive nature of the profession and the commodity nature of legal services have all contributed to “More Work; Less Pay”; that ultimately led to the deteriorating quality that in turn affects the esteem of working in a legal firm.
As a result, interviews are now conducted differently in CA. Leon’s comment is that “We are being interviewed by the Candidates these days”. VALID.
Moving forward, CA intends to chart out our very own “Blue Ocean” in making CA a talent magnet. Here is our 1st attempt, CA Open Letter to all potential CA Crew. Please click here and help us to forward the same to those who share the same aspiration as CA (the red-blooded passionate younger generation).
We shall follow up with more ideas and commitments to up our War Chest that is driven by our unique CA Culture more than anything. It is our dream to be ultimately the “cAcademy” for the brave and the courageous!
IDR Watch:
- RM4.1Billion investment committed from the Middle East and more in the pipeline.
- Disney in Talk – to be biggest in the region competing with Universal Studio in Sentosa, Singapore.
Last Word:
Courage and Admiration to my fellow lawyers, fellow servants to justice! The long march to redemption starts on 926!